My family mechanic friend installed the new cab battery and did some electrical diagnostics on the motorhome today. Everything checked out. The strategy now is to cut a hole under the bed in the floor to reach the top of the gas tank to replace the fuel pump. It's on order.
As expected, it was difficult to get an in-tank fuel pump for a 1988 Ford Econoline cut-a-way. The fuel sending unit that sends a reading to the fuel gauge in the cab might need to be replaced. We ended up just getting the fuel pump because from what I was told at the auto parts store, it Ford might not make them anymore. And that coincides with all the searches that I've done for it? But the employee at the auto parts store said that the sender might just be temporarily ceased? He said that I could be like buildup on a toilet flush handle and that my family mechanic friend might be able to manually move it once the unit is out?
When the motorhome was built, Itasca installed a theft alarm. And it's speaker is over where a second battery could be mounted. It doesn't work anymore and my mechanic friend recommend that this be removed and a second cab battery be installed to improve startup. I concur as I've always believed that the starter could use some improvement.
Over the last year and a half, the chassis has taken on more water damage. One of the first things that I need to do when it warms up is seal the roof and windows, then gut the interior one compartment at a time. But I'm going to use a task list on my smartphone to make a schedule of improvements. He recommends that I go with a natural wood ceiling and I want to go with heavy duty rubber truck cab matting on the floor.
For right now, we might go with the old 23 gallons in the gas that's in the tank. He says that it will depend on a test that he'll do to it. If the test comes back positive for too much water condensation, then we'll evacuate and replace it with something fresh. The strategy might be to to use a fuel cleaner and octane booster? And then we'll fill up the rest of the tank with high octane gasoline.
If he can't get the sender working, I'll just keep taking records every time I fill up the tank, writing down the odometer reading and what the pump reports in gallons, then get an average gas mileage from that. Then set two apps on my tablet, one to use the GPS to track my average speed and the other to use as a fuel tank estimator. It's what I've already been doing.
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